Category: Finance

You might have had a similar experience I did regarding a MasterCard payment glitch when a POS swipe machine would register a ‘payment not accepted’ error. Probably you’ve had successful transactions using your MasterCard with a specific store and then suddenly two consecutive attempts on separate occasions deters you from swiping it again. Sometimes the problem would be in one specific store and the other stores seem to not have a problem with accepting payments from it.

I would normally purchase my afternoon tea or frappe at a McCafe nearby with a MasterCard but until two weeks ago I had to use my alternative Visa card because of the payment not accepted error. I could still use the MasterCard to pay for my groceries. It could be McDonald’s POS system not functioning properly but I attempted to use it the week after that and it was still unsuccessful.

The curious thing was the same MasterCard is connected to my LINE Wallet and when I used my personal scan code (which I had set to automatically charge my MasterCard) for the Rabbit Line Pay machine, the payment came through just fine. So that rules out a possible system outage on the part of MasterCard.

This is why sometimes having a mobile wallet is advantageous. I could not really point out where the real glitch came from and I was glad I was observant that there always had been a Rabbit Line Pay beside McCafe’s POS.

Like this:

Few days ago I contacted iTunes Support for my problem in renewing my 50GB iCloud storage. The error had to do with my payment method being declined. I received a prompt response but not a satisfactory answer.

I purchased a track on iTunes on September 30th and the MasterCard which has always been listed on my Apple ID has been successfully charged the corresponding amount. Three or fours after it was already October 1st and I received an e-mail:

On 30/09/2018, we attempted to charge you for your 50 GB iCloud storage plan, but there is a problem with your payment information. Your account will be downgraded to the free 5 GB storage plan if we cannot successfully renew your subscription.

Before I was able to open my mail, I was able to buy some gold bars in Candy Crush. Now, purchases have to be verified by an Apple ID password before they go through. It’s odd that my other in-app purchases would go through except the iCloud storage renewal.

I followed the usual steps to update the billing information on my Apple ID. I tried it thrice and the payment method declined error persisted. I contacted iTunes support and I was told the same answers which I already knew and tried prior to getting their response but those didn’t work.

One tip they would insist on is the name and billing address should match etc etc. My billing name on Apple ID does not match what the MasterCard says but my purchases went through before that (including the iCloud storage renewal).

The unaddressed problem here either lies with iCloud’s or MasterCard’s but, of course, iTunes Support cannot address that.

I solved the problem by changing my card on file to an American Express. Mind you, the billing name and postcode on file does not even match with that of my AmEx’s.

Like this:

It has been a while since I started seeing “Beta version” and “For selected users only” whenever I would click on the GCredit tab in my GCash app. Few of my friends and relatives who have GCash have had their GCredit working for them when they do QR shopping. I had better GScore on my GCash mobile app than they did but I was quite late to the party. I thought it probably has something to do with the fact that my Globe number has been on international roaming for close to a year now.

Then last week I got a text notification that I have been approved for GCredit.

My sister and cousin had been approved for P2,000 but I had not expected mine to be P5,000.

GCredit is not without its disadvantages – some GCash users who have been known to have regular cash flow coming into their GCash accounts might suddenly stop using it once they can no longer afford to fund their GCredit interest. I have heard a few unpleasant stories about GCash users’ balance being automatically deducted because of their unpaid GCredit interest. As with credit lines, moderation is always key.

For the meantime, its advantage for me is the pay bills part. I can pay my Smart postpaid bill with GCredit. It’s a measly P999 monthly plan which I have not really utilised for 10 months straight. Sending money to other GCash users is not available with GCredit.

How does one get approved for GCredit? Just keep using GCash to pay your bills, buy groceries with the QR Code shopping or top up mobile numbers with it and in no time your GScore or trust score will move up.

Like this:

For a few years that I’ve been a Skrill member, I have also experienced Skrill to GCash withdrawal problem before and I’m surprised the Globe number 0956 prefix problem is still a huge topic in some forums. Some forum posters have pointed out one needs to enroll a Globe number with a lower prefix into GCash and add it to one’s Skrill mobile wallet.

I am bringing this topic to light again because my cousin recently encountered a Skrill to GCash withdrawal problem specifically with the error “Recipient number can not be found, please review and try again.” He has a freshly verified GCash account so what could have been the problem? His Globe number has a 0906 prefix so this somehow botches the lower prefix theory.

In 2015 I had bought a Globe LTE pocket WiFi at 50% discount and the following year I decided to use the SIM card included in it as my GCash AmEx number. Not long after I decided to apply for a GCash MasterCard because I wanted to have a GCash physical card with me. Right off the bat I already noticed a problem with the new SIM card the agent suggested I enroll for the GCash MasterCard – the text notification for the GCash registration did not arrive instantaneously and he had to pry open another SIM card packet before he got a successful registration.

I was able to add both of my GCash numbers – the AmEx and MasterCard ones – to my Skrill mobile wallet. It tricked me to think both numbers would be working fine for Skrill to GCash withdrawal. I was already using the GCash AmEx number to withdraw on Skrill and never had a problem with it. Adding the GCash MasterCard proved pointless thereafter when I would get an error message with every withdrawal attempts. Luckily with my 0995 GCash AmEx number already on file, I could (and still can) successfully withdraw from Skrill to GCash instantly and I would then transfer the GCash AmEx funds to my 0956 GCash MasterCard.

For my cousin, this solves his Skrill to GCash withdrawal problem for the meantime, which means he would have to do the Skrill to Skrill transfer and I would have to withdraw to my GCash Amex, forward it to my GCash MasterCard and lastly to his GCash account. Good thing the whole process is instant.

I don’t think we simply have a lower or higher prefix number problem here for Skrill. As has been known with Globe’s practice of recycling inactive numbers, you can bet it’s possible the root of the Skrill to GCash withdrawal problem error “recipient number cannot be found” is that some GCash numbers, regardless of prefixes, were once nulled or deactivated and along the way some quality control went awry.

Like this:

I have read some posts in the Globe Community forum about user complaints not getting their Lazada refunds or any other chargeback promptly and by promptly these dissatisfied GCash users mean months. Trying to contact 2882 or constantly badgering their customer support via their Facebook Messenger account sometimes can be a waste of time.

I, too, had purchased an item on Lazada Thailand’s website which the merchant eventually cancelled and I waited for 3 months because I had placed so much trust in the system to automate the refund itself.

What you need to know is on Lazada’s end, it would only take less time for them to process the refund. The tricky part is on GCash’s part. This GCash refund problem seems to happen more to GCash MasterCard accounts. This is just my observation as I also own a GCash AmEx and with the latter it’s never taken months for refunds to arrive to my GCash AmEx balance.

How did I get my Lazada refund to my GCash MasterCard resolved? I filled up the Dispute Form and e-mailed it to gcashinquiries@globe.com.ph. It’s very important to remember that sending them an e-mail with a description of your problem won’t do it – always always always fill up the dispute form, tick the correct concern and send them additional proof like receipts or a screenshot or communication exchange with Lazada or some other company you are awaiting refund from.

My Lazada Thailand purchase was made in April this year but I did not file the dispute until early August. However, once I filed the dispute with GCash, I was able to get my Lazada refund in less than a week. You will know when the refund because you will receive a text notification which usually looks like this:

Upon review of a previous transaction, we have now credited PXXX.XX to your account. Your new balance is PXXXX.XX. Ref. No. XXXXXXXXXX.

In order to completely fill up the dispute form with the correct details, you might want to have your transaction history e-mailed to you. You can do this right within the GCash mobile app. You can even select the specific month when you made the online purchase. The transaction history will contain the 10-digit Transaction Reference number. If you know the date but don’t remember the exact time you made the purchase, you can look for the e-mail confirmation of the online purchase sent to you by Lazada or some other merchant. The time on the e-mail and the time on the GCash transaction history should match. The 10-digit Transaction Reference number is the one that GCash support will refer to in their records for their review.

As of this writing, I still have 3 more pending refunds in this order: from Booking.com’s promotion, from Google AdWords, and from iHerb. The last two were July purchases so they should come in within this month.

What if you are expecting a reward for an online promotion and you entered your GCash MasterCard for it? That’s what happened with my Booking.com’s 30% reward from a hotel stay promotion Booking.com had back in June. The e-mail confirmation stated that $12.70 was on its way to the card listed on my account. July came and went but there was no ingress of $12.70 on my GCash MasterCard. Of course, this was a hotel stay paid for in cash so there was no 10-digit GCash transaction reference number to look in the transaction history for. In this kind of scenario, you would need to contact the merchant to follow up with them regarding the reference number on their end and forward it to GCash.

Like this:

Last week I signed up for Google AdWords and created a campaign to test the waters. The minimum I paid for was $10 and Google collected my payment via a Philippine-issued debit card.

When I signed up, I saw the location or Country drop drown menu detected Vietnam by default. Thinking I was supposed to use my temporary address here in Hanoi, I entered my Hanoi address. My ad campaign was running well and my $10 balance was deducted $0.40 for a few days. I made another campaign after that, this time I promoted a YouTube video I had uploaded a month ago. The day after I received an email saying that my Google AdWords account was suspended for Suspicious Payments.

Google AdWords Suspension for Suspicious Payments, as I understood it after I appealed Google AdWords’ decision, meant they suspected I used a stolen credit card because the default country I registered Google AdWords for and the billing address of my Philippine-issued debit card were different. It’s funny because as soon as they emailed me regarding my account suspension, they sent me another email (on the same day!) that my ad campaign was up and running.

If you do a Google search about Google AdWords suspension for Suspicious Payments, you will come to the conclusion few only get their Google AdWords suspension lifted. You guessed it, I got the same canned response about their decision was final and that I would not be able to create another account. However, when I go to my AdWords dashboard, it doesn’t absolutely reflect that. To get my refund, I had to cancel my Google AdWords account and yet after deactivating it, the button turned into REACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT. Another eye-rolling moment.

For now, I won’t think about reactivating my account yet even though it was clearly just a click away. The lesson for this is to make sure your billing address of your debit or credit card matches that of your registered country when you signed up.

Like this:

PayMaya offers a virtual card by simply registering via their PayMaya mobile app. If you want a GCash debit card alternative, you can definitely use PayMaya abroad and withdraw your funds using a physical PayMaya card.

Since the premise of PayMaya is principally for the purposes of a virtual card, no physical card is provided for the virtual card number you enrolled to by default on the PayMaya mobile app. It is important to note that you can have 2 or more PayMaya physical cards which you can order on the PayMaya website online or in PayMaya booths in malls. Once you have the PayMaya physical cards on hand, you can proceed to link them to your PayMaya virtual card. The mobile app is pretty straightforward when it comes to linking the physical cards. Once your physical cards are confirmed linked, the balance is shared among your physical cards and the virtual card number.

But how do you use your PayMaya abroad? First, you need to ask yourself if you used your postpaid or a prepaid number as your PayMaya login credential. Although you can use your TM or Globe mobile number to initially register with PayMaya, the critical distinction to make is the postpaid or prepaid number.

With a prepaid number, all you need to make sure is top it up with PhP100 for international roaming. With a postpaid number, you will be charged a PhP500 or so per day which is not ideal when you are staying overseas for long.

Second, you need to make sure you have logged in to your PayMaya mobile app before traveling out of the country. Some time ago PayMaya added a security feature for its users via a verification code that can only be sent to your registered mobile number.

If you registered with your postpaid number as your PayMaya login credential, it means you will need to keep your sim inserted to get the verification code.

The good news is you can still view your PayMaya funds but it will have to be on an ATM machine overseas and not on your smartphone’s screen. Using the PayMaya physical card, you can inquire about your balance by doing a balance inquiry.

Like this:

Having traveled to a few countries in Asia for the past year, I feel this information is share-worthy for potential tourists coming in to Vietnam. I have a GCash MasterCard from the Philippines and it is the principal card I use for ATM withdrawals and grocery purchases. However, I would run into a problem sometimes because not all ATMs accept my card even though the ATM machine clearly has MasterCard sticker on it. I’ve compiled this short information as a result of my own trial-and-error experience with most ATM machines.

Just like Indonesia, Vietnam’s currency employs many zeros and mindfulness is a useful asset when handling money here in Vietnam. In Thailand, I do not usually pay attention to the withdrawal limits in banks as I do not reach more than 7,000 Baht transaction/week.

Once you arrive at any airport in Vietnam, I recommend you look first for the SeA Bank ATM because it has the highest withdrawal limit of 5,000,000 Vietnamese dong per transaction.

Should you encounter a problem with the card not being accepted by SeA Bank, you can move on to either Sacom Bank, Vietcom Bank and Maritime Bank as these three’s withdrawal limit is 3,000,000 Vietnamese dong per transaction.

If you see a Techcom Bank ATM, just know that you can only withdraw 2,000,000 Vietnamese dong per transaction. Each transaction will incur a fee of 66,000 Vietnamese dong.

Sometimes you might get unlucky with other ATM machines. In my case, PVCom Bank, OCB Bank and Exim Bank, unfortunately, would not accept my GCash MasterCard.

Like this:

GCash does monitor its users’ transactions and if the GCash team detects a slight suspicious activity, they will notify the users via email. I received a comment on one of my articles about his or her account being suspended so I thought I would address this.

If you find that you cannot log in to your GCash mobile app. you would get this kind of error message:

I immediately went to GCashCare on Messenger and that was a mistake – a waste of time because even though GCashCare is preset to send automated responses once you send them a message, you would not be able to get to chat with a live person as soon as you deliver your response. Chances are, you would have already been e-mailed about your GCash account suspension so you should first check the email account you registered with GCash instead of going to Messenger.

True enough, I did receive an e-mail from GCash informing me of transactions they tagged as suspicious and they wanted me to confirm if I was the one who performed them on the mobile app.

Without hesitation I responded to the e-mail that I was the one who made the transactions they listed. The account suspension was lifted shortly after they received my response so no worries there. Even if your account gets suspended, it is temporary.

Like this:

As you all know I have been writing about the technical issues I have had with GCash and all of them have been resolved. In this article I am going to write about the GCash non-dispense issue I had with an ATM machine outside the Philippines.

As I have written in a previous article, withdrawing cash in ATM machines overseas can be tricky as some cards may not be accepted in all banks and you run the risk of trial and error as to which bank’s ATM machine would accept your card. Even if the ATM machine lists all the logo, it’s not an assurance that it would work. I have a GCash MasterCard and even though the bank in Hanoi I tried transacting with listed MasterCard on the ATM machine, I still encountered an error and the card ejected my card along with the transaction slip bearing the words “Issuer or Switch Inoperative”.

No cash came out, of course, so imagine my confusion when I tried withdrawing funds in another bank’s ATM machine and saw the error message on the screen that my funds were insufficient for the transaction. I did not bring my Android phone at the time which has my Globe sim inserted in it so I did not see the text message from GCash that the non-dispense transaction at Shinhan ATM machine got my GCash balance deducted.

I sent an e-mail to GCash about it and the customer service rep replied that it would take 7-14 business days for my funds to be reverted. My mistake was WAITING and doing nothing for the 7-14 days period. When I tried to follow up with them beyond the 14 business days period, I was told by the agent that she forgot to attach the Dispute Form for me to fill up. The reversal dragged on longer than expected because even when the second 14 business days period right after I submitted the Dispute Form, it took something like a week or so for me to see the funds back in my account and not without badgering GCash on Messenger, Twitter and via e-mail. Not to mention all my follow-up attempts were futile because their reps would not respond to me on time. Two weeks after I got my funds back was the only time when the replies from their customer service agents came in.

I know I have stressed this before in other GCash articles, but I am going to emphasize this issue one more time – please have a Dispute Form downloaded on your laptop or desktop computer to fill up easily in case you encounter any technical issues with GCash services, especially those that involve money reversal. You can download the Dispute Form here.